Words are Hard

Written by Deyanira Villalta

Inspiration comes out of nowhere and everywhere. All writers experience the rush of ideas, flurry of excitement over characters, dialogue, and plot twists. We scramble for scraps of paper, scribble on the back of an electric bill envelope, reach for our digital recorders, and word processors. Many of us have a never-ending flame of gracefully flowing stories and poems. Most of us, however, end up searching for inspiration reading through writing prompts. 

In elementary school, one of my teachers would walk around the classroom with a black marker in her hand. Each of us eagerly waited our turn with our notebooks open to a blank page. All she would do is draw a random squiggly to exercise our imagination and creativity. The assignment was simple. Incorporate the squiggly in a drawing on the page. Once completed we wrote a story.

Image Credit:
http://www.chicagonow.com/listing-beyond-forty/2013/11/40-really-awful-writing-prompts/caption

After that, not too many teachers asked for that same kind of creativity and problem-solving. It’s the ‘something out of nothing’ that fascinates me. We each see the same thing, differently. Colors, for example, exist on a spectrum that is not visible by everyone. Our perceptions are shaped by our experiences of sight, sound, and understanding. It’s no wonder some of us can't get along.

All of this leads me back to writing prompts, as described earlier. My writing prompts are visual, as it turns out. So, reading through a list of prompts makes it difficult for me to imagine. There is one prompt that got to me, though. The feelings just poured out of me and became one of the many layers that surrounded and swirled the end of a relationship. Anyway, not to get too personal, but what I mean to get across to you is there is no such thing as a writer that isn’t writing even when s/he isn’t writing. 

Dear reader, how do you keep the flow of words steady on the page? Do you recall a particularly strange writing prompt that led to a satisfying writing session?